The Alpha and The Omega
by Chamaeleon
Summary: Thousands of years into the future, youkai are becoming humanity's mindless replacement for men. What happens when Kagome meets a youkai with a mind of it's own?
1. The Start Program Refined

Disclaimer: Inuyasha and co. are not my property. The storyline, however, is.  
  
The Alpha and Omega:  
  
Chapter One- The Start Program  
  
"As far as my organization is concerned, the legal implanting of R-chips in men is completely immoral, and needs to be- Justice, I demand order to speak!" The woman pounded her fist vehemently, shaking the podium with her fervor. Papers fluttered down wildly, unnoticed in her incensed tirade, her face lined with stern frown lines, making her already chiseled features more intimidating. The wrath oozing from her body language had no effect on the audience on its feet with rage, waving their arms and yelling more than opposition- Boushu heard threats to her family and children screamed by red-faced women.  
They were all women. All of them. 'All who count in this room, at least', Boushu seethed silently, noticing those still calm who sat dumbly in their seats, most with dull frontal stares. They made up the men of the world. 'What men in our society have been reduced to,' Boushu corrected herself, taking her own seat with a sigh, and watched the orderlies force the women down and away from Boushu herself. Boushu had no pretty ideas of what just one of these women would do to her if they managed to actually put their hands on even an inch of her skin. She wished the board that set this conference up had been thoughtful enough to ensconce the auditor area with a defense shield to remove such a threat. Boushu remembered the women's faces as they appraised her request, each one filled with disgust, disbelief or a mix of both. How many women like Boushu existed in the world anymore? Sometimes it felt that she was the only one. Who else would petition for the things she did? Who else had (Boushu scoffed at the term) the balls to fight a globe of women for the right of men?  
Who else wanted their return?  
Examining her polished nails and only half extending her attention beyond her thoughts, her eye caught bemusedly on a holoscreen hanging from the ceiling. A technician, she saw, had chosen to project the Dead Zones during her presentation. A chuckle rose in her throat. The crowd's fury was explained. Even she found it difficult to watch the torched landscapes without bile rising in her belly. And yet... and yet, she came to things like these, Boushu thought bemusedly, and spoke the words she did.  
It all fell on ears as mute to her opinions as those that lay in the Zones.  
Enough was enough. The crowd was unwieldy, refusing to cooperate with the authorities; in fact, Boushu could see it would only be a few minutes more before the women overwhelmed the line of officers and a riot broke out completely. Boushu got to her feet, motioning with one hand to her bodyguard to prepare herself for a quick escape, and approached the podium once more.  
"You who run this unbalanced society have heard my words too many times to count, and yet, what is truly heard? How many of you will go home tonight and think of the slave who serves you dinner as your zuri?" She used the word for biological male progeny purposefully, ignoring the gasps of shock from the blasphemy. "How many of you," she pressed on, slamming her hand against the straining wood, "will see the man you claim as husband, and see nothing but dead eyes and rape? Who here will end the blame game for the war that lays on both shoulders of the sexes- a game that has taken itself too far, despite all that you people say about statistics and casualties? We came into this universe as two- one man, one woman. How will we end it? With the slow death of a race of bitter women, their men gradually replaced with these robot men we've created, excusing their existence by saying they are less dangerous, despite the level of youkai crime rates? And however much we try to deny it, birth rates are dropping, by hundreds of thousands 'each year'!" She paused to breath, forgetting in her tirade her own biological necessities. "Men can no longer be denied, can no longer be pacified and 'enslaved'! Woman was not brought into this world alone. She has her counterpart, and that... must be man, not some fake reproduction youkai. If you do not end it soon...blood," she intoned slowly, "will end it for you." Her ultimatum issued- the single reason for the conference- Boushu stepped down, and walked off the stage into the circle of bodyguards that roughly shoved her between them, just as the crowd broke across the police line, and rushed toward her.  
  
***  
  
"Please, please! Oh, god! It's coming this way again, I can hear it! I can 'hear' it! Oh god! HELP ME!!"  
Kagome whirled around, throwing the headphones off her ears as the line went dead, bounding out of her seat with enough force to tip it over. "Shit! Tanni, we lost the line!"  
A head popped up two cubicles away, Tanni's face locked in a chiseled state of concentration. "We got the coordinates."  
"Where?"  
"East Side, south," Tanni said, her voice clipped with urgency.  
"Right." Kagome nodded, blue eyes narrow slits. "Get it downloaded, print it out, and send it to YD."  
The other woman's eyebrows darted up in surprise. "Youkai department?"  
Kagome wasted no more time with the woman. "Suri! Where the hell are you?"  
"Right here boss!" Another head popped up, like a mushroom in a creek bed, although this one dyed her hair a vivid shade of red every two weeks. They matched the contacts she liked to wear. "We've got an identity match!" She called, waving papers in the air that looked like they had a face printed on them.  
Kagome huffed impatiently, striding briskly out of her office and snatching the documents Tanni held out for her. Flipping through them with a trained eye, Kagome saw she was dealing with an apartment building complex. Suri met both women, darting looks at Tanni in between trying to see the papers her boss leafed through. "Well?" Kagome barked suddenly, glaring at Suri.  
The woman jumped guiltily, throwing her a hurt look before saying rapidly, "Oniya Surawitz. A Russ-Asian. Forty-seven years of age. Ownership of one youkai-" Kagome threw Tanni a withering look- "Model XA- 76651b." Suri blinked, "That's a really cheap model, Major. And I think it was up for recall just two weeks ago."  
A snarl broke out across the woman's lips. "I don't care what you think! I want the goddamned facts, and I want them now!"  
Suri bowed her neck, shamed. Kagome felt her own neck heat with an embarrassed blush, before she shook her head violently, the anger in her eyes returning. 'I don't care how much of a bitch I am right now. These girls don't understand the meaning of a life-or-death situation', Kagome thought silently.  
"I'm very sorry, Major Higurashi. I'll get back to the facts," she cleared her throat noisily. "She lives in a Class D apartment, on the East Side, alone except for the slave." Suddenly she pressed her finger against her ear and cocked her head like she could hear something. "I'm just getting in- our girls made a few calls- the woman's a recluse, but the neighbors hear strange things in the walls. They suspect tampering with the youkai."  
Tanni exhaled, all the color in her face draining out like spilled ink. "Tampering?"  
Kagome dismissed Tanni's anxiety with a gesture. "Happens all the time. It's a psychological thing, Private. Slaves can't feel emotions and when things become more than just Master and slave... get my drift?"  
Finely penciled eyebrows jolted upward as Tanni's brain followed Kagome's train of thought. "You mean..." Her stomach gave a nauseating lurch. "That's disgusting."  
Kagome ignored her. Newbie, she thought scornfully. "Here, take this, Suri," she said, shoving the maps at the startled woman. "Transfer all the information to the YD and get a team on the move. We've lost far too much time as it is. I'll make a call to Major Hiraikotsu personally." Kagome strode off, leaving the women standing in the middle of the bustling Emergency Department staring at each other. Kagome gave them five seconds before she bellowed over her shoulder, "Move your asses now, Privates," and left the room, tapping at her bracelet the while.  
She allowed a smug smile to curve on her lips as she fiddled with the gadget on her wrist- a communicator complete with MainFrame connection, holophone, and more than Kagome knew how to work yet. The latest thing on the market, Kagome had personally requested the equipping of one for each member of the force and coincidentally, officers were more efficient and organized when they were in almost constant communication. 'And I earned major kudos with the boss,' she thought happily. Right now she needed Hiraikotsu, though, and the call was not going through.  
"No, no, no! Who is this? You're not Sango's normal secretary," Kagome accused, looking at the unfamiliar face with suspicion. "Where the hell is the woman?"  
"Ma'am, I don't like the way you're talking about the police officers. If you don't change your attitude, I'm afraid I'll have to transfer you to my superiors!" She woman snapped prissily, her curly white locks bouncing as she spoke.  
"Fucking hell, that's what I want- oh you bitch!" Kagome cursed as the woman closed the line with a glare. Frustrated, Kagome pounded in a new code, one that linked directly with Sango. "Please have your bracelet on today, please have your bracel- Thank the gods, Sango!"  
Her friend's face materialized on the floating screen, frowning with consternation, but an otherwise a soft gleam in her eye as she saw her friend on the other line. "Who the hell is- ohh, Kagome. How're things, babe?"  
"Okay. Busy busy. I'm en route to the Trans Station."  
Sango popped a piece of gum in her mouth as she nodded distractedly; Kagome heard clicking from the other end of the line and bet Sango was on her computer. "Yeah," Sango said eventually, "I see you've sent one of my teams out."  
Kagome nodded tersely, "We suspect tampering."  
Sango lifted an eyebrow, "I see. We'll, I'm just glad I transferred out of the damned department. I hate those horrible calls."  
"It's just business," Kagome shrugged, darting around a group of slow movers in the hall.  
Sango turned her whole face toward the screen and propped her head on an elbow. "So, babe, what is it you want?"  
As if expecting opposition, Kagome quickly said, "Permission to join that team."  
Scarlet red lipsticked lips pursed at the request, knitting together Sango's eyebrows, "What for? It's not your department. Oh wait," Sango started, rolling her eyes to the ceiling, "Please tell me it's none of that 'I have a feeling about this' bullshit now!"  
Unexpectedly, Kagome's face took on a pleading turn, "Come on Sango, you know I'm always right about that stuff. I think this is gonna be a big one!"  
"You don't even like fucking youkai! That's why you switched the hell out of this god-forsaken place!"  
Jutting her upper lip out, Kagome whined like a ten-year-old trying to convince her mommy to buy a toy. "Please Sango, I beg you! As a personal favor. If I'm not right about this one, then..." She searched desperately, "...I'll buy you a pound of chocolates!" Her blue eyes gleamed devilishly, aware of the one thing that would make Sango do practically whatever she asked.  
Sango jerked as if struck. Glancing warily about her office, her mellifluous voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, "An entire pound?"  
The grin breaking across Kagome's face was ferocious, "A whole pound."  
"You swear?"  
Her right hand pressed against her chest, Kagome said, "I swear it on my life!"  
Sango's eyes narrowed, "Then you better fucking come back alive," she turned around, and Kagome heard busy clicking. When Sango's face reappeared, her lips were curved up a fraction. "Alright. It's done, you goddamned sneak. Now get the hell out there before my boss gets in here to snap my neck on paperwork." The screen flickered out of life, leaving Kagome standing alone in front of the elevators.  
"Damnit, can these things take any 'longer'?" she hissed through clenched teeth. She rubbed the twitching muscles, forcing them to relax like her doctor had said, but couldn't help her foot, which suddenly started tapping. "Forget it!" she groaned, and opened the stairwell door.  
  
Sprinting down the stairs was dangerous activity done only in emergencies, and for good reason, Kagome realized. The steps hadn't been renovated since the Before War era and crumbled a bit with each pounding step she took. Even the rail was made of corrupted iron- a metal not used in a century- and she knew she would be safer falling than trying to get a hold on the perilous rail.  
"Oh shit!" she cried out, cement scrabbling loose under her heavy boots. Her hands flailed uselessly in their air as she fell backwards, her butt hitting the steps with a shudder to the whole structure. Oh gods, it's going to collapse completely! Fear overwhelmed her senses as she slid, bumping painfully on each step until she collided with one of the flat platforms on each door level. The shivering continued, loose pieces of the stairwell breaking apart and jumping into Kagome's face and eyes. With a cry, she batted the debris away, crawling backwards.  
Her back hit the wall with a shocking thud, jarring Kagome's cerulean eyes open - in time to watch in horror as the railing she was so afraid of even touching moments ago collapse, leaning backward in slow motion, and disappearing down the atrium. Silence thundered pregnantly, marred by Kagome's fingers frantically searching for the knob on the door next to her.  
Then the railing hit the bottom floor with explosive loudness, and the well burst into shuddering chaos.  
The floor beneath her feet wrenched apart from the walls just as Kagome fumbled the door open and heaved herself through, landing sprawled on the carpeted floor of whatever department she had ended up in.  
'Ohgodsohgodsohgodsohgods'. Rational thinking was so far out of reach it was all Kagome could do to breath and lie there, sucking in panting breaths like a drowning woman. 'I could have died, I could have died, that would have been it. Icouldhavedied!'  
"Holy fucking hell," she whispered brokenly, the burning tingle in her body spreading up hot and wet in her eyes.  
"Excuse me, ma'am. Are you in need of assistance?" A mechanical monotone said from above her.  
'Oh shit.'  
  
***  
  
She was twelve. It wasn't rainy, or dark, or even cloudy like most horror stories she had read in her library books were- and she liked horror. The stories were the only ones that could spark her imagination- all the 'how's and 'why's, and using her brain to figure out the antagonist's pathos. Those were the only tales that could spark shivers at noon on summer.  
But right now it was fast approaching sunset, the kind she always liked to watch with Saniya, where the whole sky was lit by fire and candy pinks. Fall air came early, saving itself for nights when the sun couldn't banish the cold brisk. Mother was inside, just beginning dinner- spaghetti, a strange summer food- and Saniya... Saniya was right where she'd left her: gazing in awe at the mechanical monstrosity sitting dead in the living room.  
Mother had adopted Saniya two years ago. She was a War orphan. She needed a home with extra love and money to nurture her. Especially the second, because the radiation sickness still gripped her regularly and her handicap required "special consideration" as the Welfare woman had put it. It had taken almost a year before Kagome accepted Saniya as her little sister, or even looked into that scarred face, missing its left eye and half a nose. Saniya couldn't go to school. Saniya was a living reminder of Men. And that, Kagome knew...was bad.  
At twelve she was past that, and Saniya was adorable in a way that wasn't physical. But Mother was alone in trying to raise them, and she needed help. .  
***  
  
Kagome had her pistol out of its holster and pointed into the youkai's face before blinking, before even realizing what she was doing. "What the fuck do you want?" she spat, levering herself onto her knees. The harsh pain that lanced up her thigh told her the fall had probably injured them, but at the moment she focused on nothing but the bright green eyes staring at  
her dully.  
"Where the fuck do you belong, huh? You piece of fucking youkai trash!" Her voice quavered with strain, sounding unnatural as it came from her throat. The finger hovering above the trigger twitched a millimeter to press on the strand of metal that stood between her and turning the youkai into a junk pile. "Answer me!" she shouted at it, feeling her stomach twist nauseously as the too-perfect head cocked to the side as it processed her words.  
Somewhere deep inside her brain murmured, 'It's a harmless youkai. Probably a personal processor.'  
Her lips bared back in snarl she wasn't even aware of. "No youkai is harmless," she whispered, and pulled the trigger.  
"NO, STOP!"  
Out of reflex, Kagome swerved her arm away and the bullet punched a whole in an elevator instead of the youkai's genteelly smiling face. "I'm afraid the word 'fuck' does not appear in my dictionary," it said pleasantly, and walked off.  
"Oh thank GOD!" A woman cried, embracing the youkai heartily. "I thought you were a goner, love," she cooed to it, making soothing motions and petting the soft blonde hair cascading down its naked back more perfectly than any human's could. "Now, go see Doctor Kurima, she will have to wipe this out of your poor databanks," she turned as it set off dumbly down the corridor, and murmured, more to herself, "Poor thing."  
Kagome flopped onto her back in surrender, staring up at the bland white ceiling, wishing she could turn time back to this morning so she could call in sick and not come back for a week. Or for ever. "Today is so shitty," she said to the plaster, scrubbing at her eyes and slamming the gun back in its place on her hip.  
"Your day is shitty?" A very angry voice growled, "Your day is shitty? How would you like to see the work of ten years blown to pieces in a split second?"  
'Ah...I hate the Research Department'. "It's not blown up, for gods' sake. I didn't shoot it."  
Undaunted, the voice rumbled on, "He was my most special project. He was going to be the next thing since these nifty bracelets, and save police women's lives the world over!"  
Kagome ignored the backhanded compliment and bounded up, suddenly strengthened by the anger and adrenaline surging left over in her blood. Her attacker was old and plump, with a bulging stomach; but her eyes were sharp and beady black pearls in the wrinkles of her face. "Stop talking in the past tense, you old hag! The goddamned monster is still working!" Actually, her one eye was beady and sharp. The other was covered by bandages that wrapped around her head, pasting to her skull the little bit of thin hair she had left. That's strange, Kagome noted. Surgery could fix anything these days- from aging to replacing lost limbs and organs. An eye should be a simple procedure.  
"Don't you take that tone with your elders, miss! I'll have you written up so fast it'll make your hair spin! Major Higurashi or not!" The old woman hissed, waddling toward her aggressively. Kagome's mouth shut with a snap.  
"You know me?" she asked.  
The hag's countenance turned suddenly mysterious. "I know many things," she said, and bent double.  
A shocking pain gripped Kagome from her knees, and she tilted forward, bracing her weight on the old lady's shoulders. "What the hell are you doing?" she gasped out, but not before the sensation faded, leaving her with the feel of a spray moving quickly across her knees. "What the hell was that?" she gaped when the woman straightened up, brandishing a tiny cord attached to what appeared to be a perfume bag.  
The woman grunted, "Just ready for use. Heals scrapes and cuts- nothing too serious. But it can be helpful to the cop in need." It disappeared into a voluminous pocket of many on the white lab coat. "Also quickens the recovery of deeper injuries," she waggled a finger in the air and wobbled off in the direction the youkai had disappeared in. "But it must be topical! Nothing internal. No, no. Nothing internal." She fixed the younger woman with a piercing glare. Kagome swallowed convulsively, feeling as though the hag's one eye was seeing more than any two eyes ever had.  
Halfway down the hall, the woman croaked out, "What the hell are you doing standing there like a frog waiting for flies? Get over here, girl!" Kagome hustled so quickly to her side she found herself blushing in embarrassment.  
"Don't you dare order me around!" Kagome gritted, silently surprised to find the pain in her knees gone, although she would need new pants before next week. "And how do you know who I am? I think I'd remember if I met you," she added, the distasteful twist at the end telling the researcher exactly what Kagome thought of her.  
"Oh shut up, Kagome Higurashi!" she snapped peevishly. "I'm old and tired of your nonsense. How do I know you? How do I know who Kagome Higurashi is? How many people in this entire police department possess the hatred and cruelty towards youkai like you do?"  
Blood drained out of Kagome's face like water out of a bullet-riddled glass. "Excuse me?" she said, choking.  
"What?" the woman crowed, "You thought it was some little secret that all youkai in your department are treated with enormous hostility? And that while every other branch of Tokyo province has assimilated youkai somehow, you are the only branch that hasn't?" She shook her head slowly, "Such things do not go unnoticed, Kagome. Especially," she smirked at her, "by the Lab, when we so often provide the youkai used."  
Leaving Kagome stunned and groping for something to retort, they reached two heavy doors, a web of blue electricity crackling protectively across them. "Although I am the Chief of the Research Department, I'm sure you've never heard of me. You can call me Kaede," she said, punching a code into a screen next to the doors. "And this," she waved broadly at the gradually appearing laboratory, "is the lab."  
  
***  
  
All manner of mechanical creatures existed in the lab, being created or tested on or imagined. Kagome looked around with two minds, one disgusted to the point of sickness, and the other full of wonder at the top-line work going on here. The latter twisted her head in every direction, trying to follow the movement of each machine, and logic their business; the former twisted her stomach into a roiling mess. 'Laboratory' seemed too tame a word for the place, but 'factory' was too pale. Everywhere, things were happening at a pace impossible to quite keep up with.  
On a rapid conveyor belt, youkai heads were rolled along and picked up to be screwed on skeletal bodies of bare metal and wire. Smart-looking women with narrow eyes observed the process and darted forward, plucking weird tools from their pockets and cranking or adjusting a number of knobs and wires all over the bodies. Another belt churned out small cords like the one Kaede had used on her knees, while yet another produced unfamiliar guns.  
"Ah," Kaede said, spotting the direction of Kagome's eyes. "Those are new, like this little bugger," she flashed the healing cord at Kagome before stalking to the guns and pulling one off the line, and earning them a glare from a spectacled lab-girl. "They use lasers, you see. Finally," Kaede sighed, "we have produced something of fantasy, less crude than that bullet-launcher you wear," she shot the gun on the other woman's hip a look. "It's more accurate too. Would you like one?" Kaede pushed it into Kagome's hands and waddled off before Kagome could refuse.  
"Uh," her eyes caught the unfriendly stare of the lab-girl, still glaring at her. "Can I?" Kagome asked sheepishly. The girl sighed and shouted back over the din, "Take the damn thing! She's the fucking boss, woman!"  
"I heard that, Sandy," Kaede snipped, returning from wherever she had gone. She had a whole array of foreign devices crushed to her ample chest. "You will get these things sooner or later anyway, dear. You might as well take them," she said, dumping to load into Kagome's arms.  
Kagome wailed from beneath her pile, "I don't even know what these things do!" She juggled the junk, keeping most of it from spilling on the floor, but a slippery piece of wire attached to what looked like an ear escaped her fingers. Then it all tumbled down. "Oh hell!" she cursed, irritated by her own clumsiness. Kaede put a hand on her shoulder as she bent down, clucking like a mother hen, "No no, dear, don't bother with that. I'll just get our favorite boy to help out. Sani! Come over here and pick this mess up, will you?" Kagome jerked away from her touch like it was electric.  
"What did you say?" she said, a wild look on her face.  
Kaede frowned at her. "Oh, I know you don't like youkai, but Sani has his uses."  
'Sani?!?'  
A green-eyed youkai approached them, naked except for its long blonde hair. Kagome exhaled hard. Kaede looked at her sharply, "Who did you expect, girl?"  
"You named the youkai Sani." It was ridiculous. Kagome was overreacting. The youkai was picking up the things into its well-muscled arms, skin as white as milk.  
Kaede shrugged, "Yes, well, we all liked the name Saniya, but that's only for a female you know. And there are, of course, no female youkai," Kaede scoffed at the thought.  
'Saniya. Saniya! SANIYA! MOTHER!'  
Kagome didn't realizing she was stepping backwards until she collided with a conveyor belt, sending a youkai head flying into the air. Shouts of outrage and anger raged with the noisy machinery. "Girl, what are you doing!" Kaede shouted as Kagome broke into a run.  
"I have to go! I have to go," Kagome expelled, running at the doors and pounding at them when they wouldn't open fast enough. She bolted through them as they allowed a sliver enough to let her through. Saniya, Saniya! The name kept running through her head, over and over. Kagome reached the elevators, and thumbed the button, wanting to cry with relief when a light 'dinged' agreeably.  
"Girl, you forgot your things!" Kaede waddled into view, the youkai Sani marching behind her. His dead green eyes turned with a whirring snap toward her.  
"I have to go!" Kagome cried as the doors slid shut. "And the stairs are out!" she added as an afterthought, realizing irrationally the need to tell someone.  
Kaede's creased face was replaced with steel and the eerie reflected image of her own. 'Saniya, Saniya,' her mind mourned.  
  
***  
  
Kagome stared up at the pale face with twelve-year old eyes. It seemed dead to her. Dead was familiar, but had never been so close.  
"Sani," she said after a while, "what is this?'  
"Momma brought this home," the scarred face replied. Saniya used "Momma" the second she was brought to the Higurashi household, and no one told her different.  
Kagome poked the thing in the cheek, and felt cold flesh. It was disturbing. "What is it?"  
"A new thing."  
"Uh huh?"  
"'A youkai'."  
  
***  
  
Thankfully the elevator was empty, and Kagome slid down the opposite wall, clutching her knees to her chest. She couldn't stabilize her breath; it was like the asthma she had had when she was five, and found that oxygen was something everyone else could breathe. Although the surgeons had used their clever knives to fix that problem forever, she wondered if they could get into her mind and fix the other one too.  
The elevator settled on a floor just as Kagome jumped up, knuckling her eyes and brushing her hair back into place expertly. 'Nothing is wrong', she told the world silently. 'Everyone will see that nothing is wrong'. Cops and formally dressed secretaries jumbled for space, barely giving the woman a glance. The woman closest to the buttons said, "Floors?" earning half-shouted responses.  
"And you, honey?" Kagome saw the woman was looking at her.  
"Uhh," she stalled, looking around. Her bracelet blinking at her brought a flash of lightning to her brain. "Holy shit!" Kagome said and a couple eyebrows knitted together at her language, "Holy shit. I need to go to Transportation, and right now!"  
A curt bark left the woman, "Well," she said, punching in the button, "I think you'll get there just as fast as this elevator can take you, hon." Quiet laughter fueled red in Kagome's cheeks. 'Hell, you don't need to be a prick about it. Oh shit, I can't believe I forgot about the mission! Sango's gonna flambé my ass!'  
Someone jabbed an elbow in her ribs, "Hey, hon, doesn't that mean a call for you?" She pointed at the flashing bracelet.  
"I still haven't gotten those goddamned things figured out," put in a prissy secretary with the nametag Sara Miyu.  
Another woman- butch haircut- nodded enthusiastically, "Yeah! I thought it was so much better before. At least I knew what the hell I was doing!"  
'I don't believe these people!' Kagome fumed, setting her mouth in a compressed line. "Well, hon," the first girl said, "Aren't you gonna take that call?"  
Kagome frowned at her, "I'll wait till I have a little more privacy, I think." The woman lifted her eyebrows slightly. "Right," she agreed, then turned her back to Kagome. Kagome fought the instinct to stick her tongue out at the woman.  
"This is Transportation, miss!" the woman upfront called. Kagome shoved her way out obediently, wondering if the extra force was really necessary.  
Trans Department was as chaotic as usual, coppers and miscellaneous women running every direction; this was the one place Kagome had never worked, and thanked the gods everyday for it. "Okay, Sango, please don't kill me," Kagome began, tapping the holoscreen up.  
"Kagome? Oh thank gods!" Sango sounded seriously distressed. When she came into the picture, Kagome was surprised to see her friend's hair in disarray, and her lipstick fading.  
"Sango? What's the matter?" Kagome said, worried.  
"Oh this morning is completely fucked up!" the woman said, mashing her face in her hands. Kagome felt a prick of resentment. "I can't get a hold of the team- they've completely disappeared- it's been twenty minutes already since they breached, I don't have a fucking clue what's going on-"  
"Wait, Sango, you can't make contact with the team? Twenty minutes?" Kagome repeated, feeling disembodied, as though the conversation was happening to anyone but her.  
"Kagome, where are you?"  
"I'm in Trans," -Sango groaned on the other end- "I got held up..." 'The understatement of the year.'  
Sango squeezed her eyes closed, rubbing her head with long fingernails like it ached. "I need you to get over there and see what happened. Everyone is going crazy. It's absolutely dead on the other side, but the Chief won't even let me send another force in to see what's going on." Her eyes opened, gazing intensely at her friend, "Kagome, we're not getting calls from anybody. There's nothing."  
The silence between them was full of communication. "You think they're dead."  
Sango hesitated, "Kagome... I shouldn't be saying this, but... don't go. Don't go on this mission."  
"Sango!" Kagome was shocked.  
The woman shook her head, "I have a really bad feeling about this one. Kagome, I know you. Please, I'm begging you. Be sick. Go to the Infirmary. Don't go."  
"...Youkai..." Her body trembled with anger. 'I hate them all.'  
Sango's eyes were tense, "Kagome," she pleaded.  
Kagome looked at her friend. "No," she said and closed the call. 


	2. The Run Program

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, or I wouldn't bother writing my own fan fiction to it. I do, though, own the plot!  
  
A/N: Hi again, all!! I hope you liked the last chapter- did you all go back and see the edits I made? Anyway! Please don't forget to review at the end of the chapter- it really helps speed things up for the next one (reviews help with my poor pathetic confidence ^-^). Well, this is, as always, for all Inuyasha fans out there!! Enjoy!! And if you don't like it, tell me why so I can improve it next time! ^-^  
  
Chapter Two- Program: Run  
  
Boushu stared out at her audience, quiet for a moment, searching for what she called her 'reason'. Despite how easy it seemed to make each impassioned appearance, it was hard to sustain herself, to continue to make excuses to tour, to walk up to the next podium, to write the next speech. Sometimes she didn't find reason; all too often, it camouflaged, or was wiped out of many places. But sometimes, like a gem in the rough, Boushu found a pair of eyes for which she spoke, and found her 'reason' to keep speaking.  
Today, the audience was as gracious as ice cream to her legs.  
"Youkai are humanity's replacement for men. This is generally, if not officially, agreed upon. Yet there are two things prohibited all youkai," she held up two slender fingers to demonstrate, "They may never take the form of their owners, and... they may never be created as weapons. Both are ironic to the extreme," Boushu sneered. "Fashionable trends encourage youkai to look as close to human males as possible- torso, appendage structure... genitals," she drawled out slowly, ignoring the gasps. "When we have only our imaginations to limit youkai designs, why for the world would we replicate our oft-toted despised male halves?" She shrugged as though the answer was unimportant, and went on, "Miniscule details manage to keep these youkai from being destroyed in the model stage, and now it is rare to see youkai that do not stand on two legs, operate two eyes and talk with one mouth." She smiled fiendishly, her tight rosebud lips stretching out thinly. "But youkai crime. That is a much more complicated subject, isn't it?  
"And the catch is, ladies," she said, her eyebrows inching their way up her forehead, "What exactly constitutes youkai crime? Because every woman knows, after all, that youkai... do 'not' have 'free wills'..."  
  
***  
  
Kagome fixed her grip on the las-gun, cursing her sweating palms as vulgarly as she knew how, and peered into the gloom of Tokyo. Few people walked the streets at night, for good reason, but tonight the city seemed more quiet than usual- it was holding its breath, waiting for something.  
Keeping watchful eyes on the dark alleyway behind her, the policewoman unstrapped her navigator from her belt, checked the coordinates, and looked at the towering building across the street again before muttering a swearword under her breath. Five police cars hummed in front of the dilapidated doors although their seats were empty of personnel; a chill ran up Kagome's spine that had nothing to do with the fall air. Quietly, she pulled out the other gun and blinked away a bead of sweat.  
'I expected a shitty place, but...' Bars pockmarked windows, telling of richer occupants who could afford a measure of security. The rest were void of even glass.  
A scurry in the alleyway made Kagome whirl around, ready to shoot anything that moved. Seconds of thundering heartbeats passed before a limping creature scuttled out from the darkness, just slow enough to stop Kagome's finger from squeezing. 'Radiation creature,' she thought sourly as three too many legs were silhouetted by the moonlight for a simple street rat. She suppressed a shiver, glad that it wandered in the opposite direction.  
'What the hell was that?' A shadow passed in front of the fifth floor window, catching Kagome's eye. She had an impression of tall slender grace, and white gleaming skin before it dissolved into shadows again. Blaring silence drummed in her ears. Where was sound? Where was the shriek of passion or terror that blemished each Tokyo night? Any copper would know better than to approach the situation solo, even an experienced cop. Especially an experienced cop. It was a verifiable death trap.  
Before she could stop herself with rationality, Kagome was running across the road, reaching the door, and sliding through it with all the noise of a snake slithering through grass. She turned around, unsure of what to expect.  
"Oh god," she whispered.  
Kagome kneeled down, warily stretching a hand out, stricken by the blood still actively seeping from the woman's neck. As she moved closer, mesmerized by the horrific sight, the floor sucked nastily at her feet- fresh blood turning sticky and dry. Red stains crept wetly up her shoes, warming her toes. The woman's neck was punctured, a hole ripped through it so cleanly the dark marble tiles could be seen through the woman's neck. "Oh gods," Kagome repeated. 'Who could do this? What being could physically be capable of doing this?' Her stomach sinking rapidly to her knees, she brought her head up, surveying the rest of the corridor.  
Although she had never seen such a place in person, the corridor was what Kagome imagined a war slaughter would look like. Bodies were draped everywhere, in mangled pieces. 'Could a youkai do this?' When programmed in a certain manner, Kagome knew that youkai were capable of almost any crime.  
'...But something this heinous? This is more like a war zone. More like a slaughter, not a crime scene... I've never seen anything remotely like it. Youkai don't kill like this. They can't.' The scene before her said otherwise.  
A moan kicked up amongst the piled bodies, the sobbing cry of a woman who knows she is dead but lives, and dirt cascading from the ceiling at the commotion like a lowering shroud. Severed heads, eyes wide and wild in a last contortion of fear stared at Kagome, accusing her of breathing. With a scream, Kagome realized her foot was crushing the bones of a severed hand.  
"Oh, god!" she jolted up, careening into a hat stand supporting a disembodied leg, white bone protruding from the knee. It stuttered in place before falling in a ruckus on the hard floor. Kagome stood stock still, hardly daring to breathe in a kind of paralyzed fear that hadn't gripped her since she was thirteen. 'This is a big place. It couldn't hear it couldn't hear.'  
Nothing happened. There was no sudden appearance of a ghastly being wielding a gun from behind her, nor a mass murderer jumping down from the ceiling armed with a machete.  
"I'm getting paranoid, working Emergency too long," she breathed, more relieved than she was willing to admit, and bent down to right the fallen furniture.  
An echoing noise sounded deep within the house. Dampened 'thumping' moved in rhythm, floors and floors above her.  
She couldn't move from shock, from pure unholy fear. 'It's coming. The thing that did this is coming.' Kagome remembered the awful phone call, the woman's shrill voice on the phone, speaking in terrified whispers.  
'Please, please! Oh, god! It's coming this way again, I can hear it! I can 'hear' it! Oh god! HELP ME!!'  
'HELP ME!!' the words rang like a death toll in her ears. They were the last words, Kagome was certain, the woman uttered.  
  
***  
  
"I am asking the Council to answer my question!" Boushu raged, fist thumping in trademark style, neatly pinned hair coming wildly undone, lipstick nearly worn away by sheer use of her mouth. Her mouth was her life, her brain, her soul. From it, Boushu blindly believed, she could sway the oceans to roll another way. "As far as I'm concerned, as my people are concerned, you're bullshitting around, and I frankly am tired of it!" she threw glares at them all, daring them to come forth and speak true.  
One woman leaned forward, hair in buns as strict as her countenance was now. She spoke as if to a disobedient child, "We will remind the speaker that she is here by our consent, by our very will and mercy, and if she would like to continue standing there as she is now, she should show more respect to her kind benefactors."  
Boushu slammed a hand onto the podium, snarling, "If I am here, I know it is not for all the efforts of each one of you to prevent me. As of yet the highest body of power in the land has failed to meet my questions to the satisfaction of my clients, and I refuse absolutely, to leave here without an answer that is yet to my contentment!"  
"'Your clients' as you often refer to them, who exactly are these people? Would you please be more specific as to who you are speaking of, Miss Boushu, for the Council's notes?" The same woman said, features hidden behind her glasses. With the odd lighting, Boushu could not be sure of who was talking at one time, much less if they were smiling. 'I could be preaching to a youkai, for all I know,' she thought, and wondered how far-fetched such thoughts were. It seemed every day youkai technology was advancing by previously impossible leaps.  
Boushu gritted through clenched teeth, "I am not at liberty to divulge such information to this Council, nor would I if I possessed the authority."  
On the other side of the long half-circle table Boushu was addressing, a woman waved a shadowed hand, "The Council hardly feels comfortable passing on possibly top secret information to unknown recipients. By telling us this information, it would be that much more conducive to your campaign, Miss Boushu, we're sure."  
"Do I need to repeat myself to this esteemed and intelligent group?" she fumed, wondering how many times within the last five hours Boushu had been extolling the Council had attempted to wring that knowledge from her. 'I wouldn't tell on the life of every person in Tokyo Province, in the American Province, too, for that matter. Not to these people. God knows what the hell they would do.' "Now, if you please," she began, switching the conversation over, "Of my several questions for this Council, possibly the most important has yet to be answered. Please, Council, a straight response this time," she adjusted her glasses to read the neatly printed notes, "What 'is' the Alpha program? We have gathered that is was begun before the war, and is rumored to have to do with youkai." Quiet assailed her. "Council, I'll be frank. I am prepared to go to press with this unless I have reason not to. I would gladly blow the entire Alpha and Omega question wide open." Still nothing. "Very gladly," she repeated, eyeing each dark blob in front of her, hoping for the slightest sign.  
The woman in front of her tapped her pencil lightly against the desk.  
  
"Miss Boushu," a voice said from her extreme left. "It would be in our best wishes, and yours too, coincidentally, if you refrained from mentioning the Alpha and the Omega program to the public. Now, you are a very smart woman, so we are led to believe from the vids, yes? So we think we understand each other, yes?" A familiarity about the voice pricked Boushu's mind, but nothing clear surfaced.  
Boushu's knuckles turned white as she gripped her notes. "Is that a threat, Council?"  
After a pause, the woman just to her right warmly replied, "We don't make threats, Miss Boushu." She paused, then continued in a harder tone, "They are unnecessary and lead to many messy things to clean up afterwards."  
"Then let me keep from believing that the World City Council is threatening me, because, you're right, Uhuri-sama," Boushu said baldly, "you will have trouble cleaning me up. I can assure you that."  
"Miss Boushu, I was under the impression there were to be no 'names' involved in this," a voice stated frostily.  
Boushu smile was just as cold, "Well, you all know mine, I didn't know why I shouldn't know yours."  
"Many reasons," came the quick response.  
"I don't need to know names, Council; I don't need to at all. In fact, wouldn't we all agree that names are just so hard to remember any more? Humans, men... 'youkai'. Although I've found for the last two you can easily replace a pronoun for the word 'thing' or increasingly 'slave' or even 'beast.' But it's harder, when you have something that's both man 'and' youkai, wouldn't you say?" Boushu said, seeing several Council members freeze, and went on smoothly, "Because I'm never sure whether to say 'freak of nature' or just run 'thing' and 'beast' together. I know!" she said with false brightness, "Why don't I call them 'Council members?' After all," she sneered loudly, "the name fits oh-so perfectly."  
The woman directly in front of her erupted suddenly, climbing out of her seat and shrieking, "The Alpha Program was never supposed to be used in that manner! It was never supposed to be directly linked to the Shikon System! That was only for the Omega! I swear it- it was never supposed to b-" The woman collapsed onto the floor in a lifeless heap.  
Boushu saw the woman sitting in the last right chair return her hand to the top of the table.  
"Miss Boushu," the bun-haired woman broke the uneasy silence, "We can be reasonable. I'm sure that a... arrangement can be made," she carried on, ignoring the guards entered the room to roughly drag the heap away, "...but we expect something from you in return, understand?"  
Pounding down the impulse wet her lips, Boushu said, "Naturally, Councilmember." She picked up her pen and took more notes during the next four hours than she ever had for any class. By the end, she was fighting to keep from trembling.  
She did, as promised by the women, succeed in passing the information to her clients before the Council assassin caught up with her.  
  
***  
  
Equanimity had fled a long time ago, beginning when Kagome found the front door locked despite her every effort to break it free. Now Kagome ran as fast as she could down the stairs, as wild as an animal being chased and feeling death at its heels. For all she dared to turn around and face the disturbing 'thumps' she heard steadily approaching her, perpetual and constant, it might as well have been some oversized radiation rodent.  
What mattered the most was simply: 'getting away'.  
There were situations when even police knew to escape. A building full of dead coppers easily fell into Kagome's personal category as one of them.  
All the running caught up to her in a bundle of fatigue, dragging her booted feet when she needed to lift them; she stumbled into a platform wall gasping like a fish for breath, unable to concentrate on the floor number her cheek was pressed against while black dots floated in her eyes. Her entire body was drained; she couldn't think past the corpses of cops in the front hall except to replay their broken bodies in her mind over and over again.  
'I can't keep running like this. Sooner or later, it will catch up or I will collapse. Either I find an escape, or I'm...' There was no doubt that the thing would kill her. She forced her eyes to read the floor: level U5b. '"U"? This building must have levels underground. Most places don't have below-ground level floors,' she pondered confusedly, twisting the door handle. Often buildings were over sites full of nuclear radiation from the War and could not sprawl lower; it explained why cities towered so unbelievably high nowadays. 'What kind of place is this?'  
"Pleasepleaseopen," she panted lowly, a stray thought of shame flittering through her mind: 'What would fellow cops think of this pitiful Higurashi Kagome?' "I don't care, please just open!" Kagome sobbed, slamming her palm against the side of the door in frustration.  
"Miss Kikyou, you are allowed entrance into Go-shinboku Laboratory; please remember to pass through the sanitation station before proceeding into the Inner Sanctums, thank you."  
'What the-?' Kagome didn't stand around to question her fortune, scrambling through the door as it slid open. It snapped shut with the same pleasant voice calling unnaturally loudly in the dank quiet, "Thank you Miss Kikyou!"  
'Miss Kikyou? Who- where am I-' Bright lights turned on with a 'pop' of tell-tale unuse, blinding her momentarily so that when the sanitation sprays clicked on, bathing her body and clothes, Kagome barely stifled her scream of surprise.  
"Miss Kikyou, you may now proceed to the Changing station, thank you!" The voice niggled at something in the back of Kagome's mind.  
Although she wanted to yell out to the voice, "I'm not Kikyou, and where the hell am I," she settled for a disgruntled, "Urk," and went toward the space in the blank white walls where she thought the door would be: a vague outline of off-white defined its parameters. At a loss for what to do without turning a handle Kagome shoved at it dully.  
"Miss Kikyou, please proceed to the Changing station, thank you! Please identify yourself at the door grid, thank you!" Obediently, a small grid lit up blue. Kagome looked thoughtfully down at her hand, remembering how she had got into this strange place. 'Ah... That's right, isn't it?'  
The Changing station appeared as a small room ringed with locker-like booths on her immediate left and right, a long circle-stool encompassing the middle. She stopped at one of the booths, looking over the clothing hanging clean, pressed, white on the hanger and weighing her options. Would the creature know where she was? Could it get inside? It would be foolish to return to the stairwell, clueless as to whether the thing was waiting right outside or just a floor down.  
"Miss Kikyou, please replace your clothes with the sterile set, thank you!" A piece in the chess set of Kagome's mind slid into place. 'That voice is male. Male!'  
A shiver tickled her spine. 'Where am I?'  
Her mind still split, she took her clothes off and stepped into the white jump suit, considering if she should ball her police uniform up and take it with her when the next door opened. "Miss Kikyou, you are now free to proceed to the Laboratory, thank you!"  
She was taking a step forward when she heard like a knife in her chest from the Sanitation Room, "Program Alpha, serial number: one-zero- zero-zero-zero-one A, you are allowed entrance into Go-shinboku Laboratory; please remember to pass through the sanitation station before proceeding into the Inner Sanctum, thank you!"  
No. It was letting the creature in too. 'Oh, gods, no.'  
Forgetting her things on the stool, she snatched up her belt with her guns and tools on it, and sprinted to the next quarter, but barely felt it slip through her numb fingers when the door settled close again.  
Along the walls and even the ceilings, innumerable tubes and pipes wove a tangled web up and down, sideways and diagonal, leaving just enough space to form a path tall enough for a human to pass under but she noticed them only because they defined her pathway by leaving no other space to move. 'I have to run. I have to get away!' Her breath came in quick gasps and, moving with inexorable deliberation, the burning pain of overused muscles screamed at her to collapse. Setting her teeth grimly, bullets of sweat dripped into her eyes. Blurred vision attacked her; Kagome stumbled on a loose pipe poking out from the tangled web ensconcing her in the epitome of her generation. Arms wind-milling, she overcompensated and found herself in the air, crashing painfully into a jutting pipeline.  
Faintly she heard, "Program Alpha, serial number: one-zero-zero-zero- zero-one A, please proceed to the Changing station, thank you!" Kagome pushed herself up, holding back the grunts of pain that jolted up her elbow and shoulder. She forced herself into a run with a relentlessness she had never known existed in herself before, had never been unlocked before.  
Her feet caught on each other as she dragged herself around a nest of pumping and wheezing machines, almost careening into the wall when the passageway stopped. She slapped at the cement bricks wordlessly until light blue flashed at her touch, and the door slid open.  
Kagome expected the expressionless male voice to announce her entrance, but in its place rang a soothing female instead, "Miss Kikyou, you have entered the Inner Sanctum." She hesitated, body twitching forward, but there was nothing more. Slowly, blinking to adjust to the abrupt brilliance, Kagome walked forward.  
  
***  
  
She waited, patiently. Extreme emphasis on the "patiently," because it was an idea Kagome had just come to terms with at twelve and rather like the abstraction. She knew for a solid fact that not many twelve-year olds understood "patiently" the way Kagome understood it; Kagome had easily turned it into an art form.  
Beside her, Saniya was silent, her head bent in a way that hid her face from the other children. Kagome knew it was another solid fact that Saniya did this on purpose. Saniya was patient as well, but she was also silent. And careful. And, Kagome knew, painful.  
Kagome was not as good at "silent" and "careful" as Saniya, but nor did she know "painful" like Saniya did. Nonetheless, Saniya's pain was Kagome's pain, and this was why Kagome sat by Saniya all the time.  
Or maybe it was why Saniya sat by Kagome.  
"Kagome-nee-san."  
The black haired girl tore her eyes off the wild students romping around the gymnasium, turned toward her little adopted sister,"Saniya?"  
"You miss Souta." It was not a question.  
Kagome resumed her original position in silence.  
"Souta is not gone," she said finally.  
Mangled face still hidden by tan locks, Saniya stood up, "You're a liar!" she said angrily. "Do not lie to me!"  
"Mom said so, Souta is not gone." She couldn't look at Saniya.  
Saniya thrust out an trembling finger, pointing with fury only barely restrained. The hair fell back from her face, allowing the sun through the windows the hit the trenched hole where her left eye should have been, "That thing is not our brother!"  
The boy in question watched the exchange from his seat in front of them. He blinked now and then. Mostly, he awaited orders.  
  
***  
  
Firstly, once her eyes adjusted, she noticed the absence of the pipes in exchange for only four huge tubes running from the top of each wall to connect to...  
That was what she noticed second.  
It was immobile, frozen in time and space. There was only the quiet humming of machines working, instead of the loud coughing and churning that had assaulted her ears as she ran. It was peaceful. Like Eden.  
The room was not big, obviously meant for one thing only: to contain a certain being. The being stood before her like a statue. She moved closer, all thoughts of chase and hunt vanished by the thing in front of her eyes.  
'A...'  
"Boy," she whispered, finishing her thought out loud.  
He was tall, even on the raised platform, slender, but well-muscled, 'very' well-muscled, especially in the thighs, and even his calves and...  
He was also completely nude. Kagome blushed for a moment, but her eyes had minds of their own and moved determinedly upward. They took in a stomach etched in steel that reminded her of those creations by the- which lost civilization? Oh, like the Greeks. His arms were connected to the tubing- she could see where they buried under his skin, twitching slightly: pumping something into him. One pipe touched his neck. The fourth one planted itself over his heart. Iridescent silver flowing hair fluttered unnaturally, moved by an imperceptible air current formed by the recyclers in the ceiling.  
Kagome moved forward, entranced by his perfect skin, by the vibrating tubes punched into him. She reached up to touch the smooth skin of his arm, lightly drawing her finger down to rougher hands and overlong nails. 'Like claws?' a stray thought awoke from her blank mind. Soft relaxed muscles rippled beneath her touch. They hardened as though tensed as her finger passed, but were unnoticed by the mesmerized woman.  
Her eye caught something strange on his arm and she moved closer, squinting to see the lines that were scratched on his skin like scars-  
"The Omega."  
Kagome whirled around like she had been struck. 


End file.
